The Dread Hammer by Linda Nagata Page B

up from the herb lore he said, “That I am the deadliest of warriors. That no company—and certainly no man!—can stand against me.”
    She smiled as she struck a flint. The spark leaped to a tuft of dry grass, and then to a handful of twigs. “They say you deserted your duty, that you abandoned the war, that you ran away from the obligation you owe to your people and to your father.”
    The fire bustled, tasting the kindling. Smoke shivered. He always knew when a person lied to him; this woman spoke the truth.
    “Did you do these things?” she asked.
    “Yes.”
    She warmed her hands beside the flames. Then she arose. “Turn your eyes again to the book while I change into dry things.”
    Smoke did as he was told, turning the pages slowly while cloth rustled behind him. After a few minutes, she spoke again. “Do you know why the Bidden exist?”
    Smoke had reached the last page of the book, so he set it aside and took up the next one. “Everyone knows that. We were bidden to protect the people of the Puzzle Lands.” This second book was an instruction on treating wounds, infections, and fevers.
    “So it was. Long ago, the prayers of our ancestors summoned Koráy from the forest. She taught us to be warriors. She led us as we drove the Lutawans from the Puzzle Lands.”
    The medical text too was filled with fine and detailed illustrations, and Smoke guessed they were done by the same hand. But unlike the herb lore, there was nothing of beauty about them. They showed only gruesome wounds, amputations, infected tissues, rashes, and bodies starved by fevers. He closed the book. “The Lutawans will wound a man and leave him to die slowly, but that is not my practice.”
    “Perhaps it’s your nature to be merciful?”
    With an impish grin, Smoke risked a glance around. The midwife had put on a simple brown gown. He watched her as she shrugged into a cream-colored house jacket. “Are you Koráyos, then?” he asked.
    “I am.”
    “And why are you living here?”
    “I came to learn from the wise woman of Nefión, whose cottage this was, but she passed from the world. Now I serve these people in her place.”
    “I serve no one. Only my wife has my allegiance—and my mercy.”
    The midwife eyed him cautiously. “Your eyes are all aglitter again. You’re thinking you’ll need to kill me when I’ve taught you what you’ve come to learn.”
    “I have already said that, but know that I won’t relish it.”
    “I am comforted.”
    Smoke nodded, pleased to bestow a kindness. “Tell me now, what is it a midwife does?”
    “She does all she can to see that mother and child both survive the labor in good health. Where is your wife?”
    “Far away from here and far from any wise woman. That’s why I’ve come to learn from you.”
    “You’ve hidden her away in the Wild Wood?”
    Smoke didn’t bother to answer. Instead he reached for the third book.
    “Not even you, Smoke, may have all that you desire.”
    “You’re wrong. I desire nothing but what I already have.”
    He opened the book. It was a treatise on midwifery.
    “You desire knowledge you cannot possess. Not in a day, nor even in a moon. The skills of a midwife take years to learn.”
    Smoke heard her, but he didn’t heed her as he turned the pages of the treatise, rather shocked at the fine drawings of babies curled inside their mothers’ bellies, and at the other illustrations, of a woman’s sacred gate and the child struggling forth from it, head first, and then hand first, and then foot.
    “Smoke!”
    He looked up at her. Something had changed. She was nervous now. He smelled her fear; heard the swift beating of her heart. “These are your drawings, aren’t they?” He wondered how she had contrived to see inside a woman’s belly.
    “Smoke, you cannot learn all the skills of a midwife in a morning, or a day, or even in a moon. Hear my prayer and take your wife to Samerhen. Don’t risk her life in the Wild Wood.”
    Smoke looked again at